Here are some other things that I’d like to share about my experiences as a student of Chris Mitchell, a.k.a. chrism with the hope that this might help others to better understand what kind of person he is, and the kinds of behaviors he engages in that he doesn’t want his larger group of followers to know about. Firstly, I stayed with him in Santa Rosa, California for a few weeks. When planning the trip I asked for the address of the house, because I wanted to share it with family so they would know exactly where I was staying. He deliberately gave me an incorrect address to pass on to my family. When I got to the airport in San Francisco, Chris Mitchell picked me up and we drove to Santa Rosa, so I didn’t realize the address was wrong until we got there. When I confronted him about it, he explained that he never gave out his correct address to people staying with him because he was afraid that their “husbands or boyfriends would come and kick down the door.“ That’s a huge red flag right there! What honest and decent person acting in the capacity of a spiritual teacher would habitually and deliberately lie and mislead students and their families in such a potentially dangerous way? This is the behavior of a criminal, and someone who has a history of behaving badly and seeking to avoid the negative consequences of his actions.
The house where Chris Mitchell lives is owned by a woman named Francine, and Chris Mitchell admitted to paying no rent or utilities or anything whatsoever for the upkeep of the house. He claimed that his arrangement with Francine is that he does housework and some basic yard maintenance in exchange for living there. But the house was always filthy, and the backyard is a disgusting graveyard of broken trailers that are mostly full of dust and garbage. Several times I saw Francine (who works full-time at a local blood bank) outside on the weekends doing all of the chores that Chris was supposed to do, while he was inside chatting on the Internet. So his followers who are frequently subjected to appeals for money by Amelia O’Conner (Suntara Kundalini) need to know that Chris Mitchell lives rent-free, pays no money for utilities or upkeep of the home, and has minimal expenses related to his cost of living. I remember him bragging about traveling to Hawaii with one of his students (who doesn’t seem to have much money herself), as well as frequently traveling to sacred sites in Europe and South America. This is all at other people’s expense. He claims that he does so much for his students that he doesn’t have time to earn a living. He has no savings or source of income other than donations from students. What seminars he gives are generally paid for by the people who put them on, and tend to operate at a loss. If you’ve gone to a seminar and paid the full price, you need to know that a lot of students get in for free or at a drastically reduced price, because he wants lots of people there to make it look like he’s more popular than he actually is. He wants fame and recognition, but is too lazy to really work for it himself, and he doesn’t care whom he hurts in order to get it.
Students who have been around for a while will notice that despite his claims of being so busy in his work helping others, a lot of the posts Chris Mitchell makes in his groups are older writings that get recycled over and over again. He rarely ever wrote anything new while I was a student, and I see that’s still the case.
While I was in California he insisted on traveling all over the state and into other states as well, and this was all at my expense. He wouldn’t hear my objections and insisted that we continue even though I got further and further in debt the more we traveled. He’s a self-centered hedonist who wants to travel, eat daily at restaurants, and to live the good life, all without working or having to pay for anything himself. He will occasionally buy gifts for students he’s trying to impress (or give them gifts given to him by other students), but then you realize he used funds given to him by people who believe that the money is to help him with living expenses, and you still have to pay for all his meals and travel expenses on top of your own.
While I was visiting him in California, he spent a lot of time Skyping and texting with a small number of students (mostly young females, or people he had talked into doing free labor for him in the way of designing websites or promoting him) and afterwards he tended to insult them or give intimate details about their lives to me behind their backs. It was TMI overload, and people need to understand that they should never confide in him anything they don’t want passed on to others, often in very unkind and unflattering ways. He doesn’t tend to spend that much time with male students or people that are not promoting him or giving him unpaid labor. He’s definitely not the humanitarian he claims to be. Pretty much anything he does with students is for his own ego-enhancement, self-promotion, or personal gratification. I think we can safely call him a freeloading con man, and have all the justification needed to do so.
The sexual predation aspect of his behavior is the most disgusting of all, and is most prevalent with young women, but he seems to proposition almost all female students regardless of their age or marital status at the first opportunity he has to be alone with them. If you refuse, you are rejected on every level and he suddenly doesn’t want to help you spiritually anymore. If you comply, you realize you’ve been used and it feels horrible and disgusting, and that there was nothing spiritual about it at all. It’s out in the open now that he has admitted to having genital herpes, and goodness knows what other STD’s someone like this might carry. If he tries to engage in sexual activity with someone and doesn’t admit to having an STD, this is illegal in many states in the U.S. including California. Know your rights! If you comply with his inevitable request to Skype in the nude while doing his ridiculous “devotion” sessions, you need to know that he has admitted to taking photos of students in the nude and keeps them for himself. This is done without the student’s knowledge or consent. If you don’t want nude photos of you floating around on his hard-drive, phone, or goodness knows where else, please do not comply with his requests that you undress in front of him. This is not Tantra, (and none of what he does is Tantra, please do your research if he tries to con you into believing that it is), it is done purely for his titillation.
While the sexual predation is a serious problem in and of itself, it is just one more behavior that Chris Mitchell/ chrism engages in that shows he is a person of very poor character, has an entitlement attitude, is a predator, and has a complete lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of others. He expects to get whatever he wants, and it’s not for your benefit, and if you don’t give him what he wants, he drops you as a student without any concern for the hurt he causes. Being in his groups may give you access to a little bit of helpful information about Kundalini, and some sense of relief that you’re not alone. But the best part of his groups comes from meeting others who have similar experiences and interests, while most of the helpful information that Chris Mitchell shares has been plagiarized from legitimate and caring teachers like Bonnie Greenwell, or gathered from other students who have shared their experiences and journeys with him. You would be much better off seeking out good teachers that don’t have a history of harming students or leading them astray with incorrect and misleading information about Kundalini. Or even better join a legitimate and egalitarian community of like-minded spiritual seekers who freely share support and information with no strings attached. Never give up your sovereignty or your power, you have everything you need to progress on your path already inside of you! The more time you spend following and supporting bad teachers, the more time you waste, and the more harm you are bringing in to the world by allowing people like Chris Mitchell to hurt and use people for his own selfish ends.
The house where Chris Mitchell lives is owned by a woman named Francine, and Chris Mitchell admitted to paying no rent or utilities or anything whatsoever for the upkeep of the house. He claimed that his arrangement with Francine is that he does housework and some basic yard maintenance in exchange for living there. But the house was always filthy, and the backyard is a disgusting graveyard of broken trailers that are mostly full of dust and garbage. Several times I saw Francine (who works full-time at a local blood bank) outside on the weekends doing all of the chores that Chris was supposed to do, while he was inside chatting on the Internet. So his followers who are frequently subjected to appeals for money by Amelia O’Conner (Suntara Kundalini) need to know that Chris Mitchell lives rent-free, pays no money for utilities or upkeep of the home, and has minimal expenses related to his cost of living. I remember him bragging about traveling to Hawaii with one of his students (who doesn’t seem to have much money herself), as well as frequently traveling to sacred sites in Europe and South America. This is all at other people’s expense. He claims that he does so much for his students that he doesn’t have time to earn a living. He has no savings or source of income other than donations from students. What seminars he gives are generally paid for by the people who put them on, and tend to operate at a loss. If you’ve gone to a seminar and paid the full price, you need to know that a lot of students get in for free or at a drastically reduced price, because he wants lots of people there to make it look like he’s more popular than he actually is. He wants fame and recognition, but is too lazy to really work for it himself, and he doesn’t care whom he hurts in order to get it.
Students who have been around for a while will notice that despite his claims of being so busy in his work helping others, a lot of the posts Chris Mitchell makes in his groups are older writings that get recycled over and over again. He rarely ever wrote anything new while I was a student, and I see that’s still the case.
While I was in California he insisted on traveling all over the state and into other states as well, and this was all at my expense. He wouldn’t hear my objections and insisted that we continue even though I got further and further in debt the more we traveled. He’s a self-centered hedonist who wants to travel, eat daily at restaurants, and to live the good life, all without working or having to pay for anything himself. He will occasionally buy gifts for students he’s trying to impress (or give them gifts given to him by other students), but then you realize he used funds given to him by people who believe that the money is to help him with living expenses, and you still have to pay for all his meals and travel expenses on top of your own.
While I was visiting him in California, he spent a lot of time Skyping and texting with a small number of students (mostly young females, or people he had talked into doing free labor for him in the way of designing websites or promoting him) and afterwards he tended to insult them or give intimate details about their lives to me behind their backs. It was TMI overload, and people need to understand that they should never confide in him anything they don’t want passed on to others, often in very unkind and unflattering ways. He doesn’t tend to spend that much time with male students or people that are not promoting him or giving him unpaid labor. He’s definitely not the humanitarian he claims to be. Pretty much anything he does with students is for his own ego-enhancement, self-promotion, or personal gratification. I think we can safely call him a freeloading con man, and have all the justification needed to do so.
The sexual predation aspect of his behavior is the most disgusting of all, and is most prevalent with young women, but he seems to proposition almost all female students regardless of their age or marital status at the first opportunity he has to be alone with them. If you refuse, you are rejected on every level and he suddenly doesn’t want to help you spiritually anymore. If you comply, you realize you’ve been used and it feels horrible and disgusting, and that there was nothing spiritual about it at all. It’s out in the open now that he has admitted to having genital herpes, and goodness knows what other STD’s someone like this might carry. If he tries to engage in sexual activity with someone and doesn’t admit to having an STD, this is illegal in many states in the U.S. including California. Know your rights! If you comply with his inevitable request to Skype in the nude while doing his ridiculous “devotion” sessions, you need to know that he has admitted to taking photos of students in the nude and keeps them for himself. This is done without the student’s knowledge or consent. If you don’t want nude photos of you floating around on his hard-drive, phone, or goodness knows where else, please do not comply with his requests that you undress in front of him. This is not Tantra, (and none of what he does is Tantra, please do your research if he tries to con you into believing that it is), it is done purely for his titillation.
While the sexual predation is a serious problem in and of itself, it is just one more behavior that Chris Mitchell/ chrism engages in that shows he is a person of very poor character, has an entitlement attitude, is a predator, and has a complete lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of others. He expects to get whatever he wants, and it’s not for your benefit, and if you don’t give him what he wants, he drops you as a student without any concern for the hurt he causes. Being in his groups may give you access to a little bit of helpful information about Kundalini, and some sense of relief that you’re not alone. But the best part of his groups comes from meeting others who have similar experiences and interests, while most of the helpful information that Chris Mitchell shares has been plagiarized from legitimate and caring teachers like Bonnie Greenwell, or gathered from other students who have shared their experiences and journeys with him. You would be much better off seeking out good teachers that don’t have a history of harming students or leading them astray with incorrect and misleading information about Kundalini. Or even better join a legitimate and egalitarian community of like-minded spiritual seekers who freely share support and information with no strings attached. Never give up your sovereignty or your power, you have everything you need to progress on your path already inside of you! The more time you spend following and supporting bad teachers, the more time you waste, and the more harm you are bringing in to the world by allowing people like Chris Mitchell to hurt and use people for his own selfish ends.